“Muslims in the southern Philippines overwhelmingly approved in a referendum the creation of a new autonomous region in hopes of ending nearly half a century of unrest, election officials said.

The Commission on Elections announced late Friday that the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is deemed ratified following a referendum on Monday. It says 1.5 million people voted in favor.

Bangsamoro replaces an existing poverty-wracked autonomous region with a larger, better-funded and more powerful entity.

It is the result of a tumultuous peace effort by the government in Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim rebel group, to seal a deal that was signed in 2014 but languished in the Philippine Congress until it was finally approved last year.”

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“Former inmate of Beijing’s Muslim ‘re-education’ camp fears his family might be deported back to China by Turkey An outspoken critic of China’s internment camps who now lives in Istanbul says his wife and youngest son face potential deportation to China because Turkish authorities might bar them from entering the country. Omir Bekali, a Kazakh national, told The Associated Press today that Turkish authorities are holding his wife and two-year-old son at the airport in Istanbul and are accusing them of using fake passports.”

(Via.)

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found a sizable shift in the views of American Muslims when it comes to homosexuality and found them to be more accepting of it than white evangelicals.

In a survey conducted between January and May, 52 percent of U.S. Muslims said homosexuality should be accepted by society — an increase of 25 percentage since 2007. Comparatively, only 34 percent of white evangelical Protestants said they believed homosexuality should be accepted, the smallest percentage of any group surveyed.    »»» NBC News

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Terror attacks carried out by Muslims receive more than five times as much media coverage as those carried out by non-Muslims in the United States, according to an academic study.

Analysis of coverage of all terrorist attacks in the US between 2011 and 2015 found there was a 449 per cent increase in media attention when the perpetrator was Muslim.

Muslims committed just 12.4 per cent of attacks during the period studied but received 41.4 per cent of news coverage, the survey found.

The study, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2928138, was conducted by researchers at Georgia State University.   »»» (Euro-Islam.info)

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A Norwegian anti-immigrant group has been roundly ridiculed after members apparently mistook a photograph of six empty bus seats posted on its Facebook page for a group of women wearing burqas.

“Tragic”, “terrifying” and “disgusting” were among the comments posted by members of the closed Fedrelandet viktigst, or “Fatherland first”, group beneath the photograph, according to screenshots on the Norwegian news website Nettavisen.

Other members of the 13,000-strong group, for people “who love Norway and appreciate what our ancestors fought for”, wondered whether the non-existent passengers might be carrying bombs or weapons beneath their clothes. “This looks really scary,” wrote one. “Should be banned. You can’t tell who’s underneath. Could be terrorists.”

Further comments read: “Ghastly. This should never happen,” “Islam is and always will be a curse,” “Get them out of our country – frightening times we are living in,” and: “I thought it would be like this in the year 2050, but it is happening NOW.”   »»» The Guardian (U.K.)

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Police have named 22-year-old Salman Ramadan Abedi as the person suspected of carrying out the suicide attack at Manchester Arena on Monday evening.

Abedi was born in Manchester on New Year’s Eve 1994 to a family believed to be of Libyan origin, the BBC understands.

His parents escaped to Britain as refugees from Libya.

It is thought he has at least three siblings – an elder brother who was born in London, and a younger brother and sister who were born in Manchester.

He went to local schools, was a supporter of Manchester United football team and worked in a bakery.

Abedi is thought to have recently travelled abroad.

Abedi’s family lived at more than one address in the city, including a property at Elsmore Road in the Fallowfield area that was raided by police.

Officers also carried out a search of a property in Whalley Range.

Manchester is home to one of the largest Libyan communities in the UK and neighbours have talked about the family having a Libyan flag flying in its house at certain times of the year.

BBC home editor Mark Easton said the raided area was known to have been home to a number of Islamist extremists in recent years; some with links to Syria and Libya; some alive and some dead.

Salford University confirmed Abedi had been a student there and said it was assisting police with their inquiries.

A trustee of the Manchester Islamic Centre, also known as the Didsbury Mosque, told the Press Association it was likely Abedi had attended there.

Fawaz Haffar said Abedi’s father used to perform the call for prayer at the mosque, and one of his brothers had been a volunteer there.

Mr Haffar stressed the mosque was what he called a moderate, modern, liberal mosque, and he is a member of an organisation liaising with police, the Independent Advisory Group.

He said the priority for detectives was to establish whether Abedi was acting alone or working as part of a wider network when he set off his device after the concert by US singer Ariana Grande, killing 22 people and wounding 59 other.

A 23-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the investigation.   »»» BBC News

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We have seen the pattern before. A young man born and raised in a Western country becomes a suicide bomber with ties to, or at least sympathy with, Da’esh (ISIS). The call to jihad to which he responded was not from the real Islam practised by over a billion Muslims. It is certainly not the Islam revealed in the Qur’an. The Da’esh blasphemers and heretics have taken credit for the attack, saying it was proper strike against the “worshipers of the Cross”. Over half the people in the Manchester arena were young people under the age of 16; some were a young as 8. The real Islam does not tolerate the murder of innocent children and does not speak about Christians with hate.

“…the nearest among the Muslims in love are those those who say, “We are Christians”: because amongst them are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.” Quran 5:82

“whosoever kills a human being for any reason other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth (terrorism or fomenters of sinful strife), it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of even one person, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.” Qur’an 5:32

“Surely they that believe (Muslims), and the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabeaans, anyone believes in God and the Last Day, and whose deeds are righteous will receive a reward from the Lord, and no fear shall be on them, nor shall they feel sorrow.” Qur’an 5:69

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron says the French state and the Muslim community are fighting on a “common front” against Islamic extremism.

Independent centrist Macron met Wednesday with the head of leading French Muslim group CFCM, Anouar Kbibech, just ahead of Sunday’s presidential election first round.

In a statement, Macron insisted on the importance of respecting France’s secular traditions but said they shouldn’t be used to target Muslims. Some Muslims feel unfairly targeted by French laws banning headscarves in schools and full-face veils in public.

Polls suggest Macron has a good chance of coming out on top of Sunday’s first round and reaching the May 7 runoff.

Also Wednesday, the Grand Mosque of Lyon issued an appeal urging Muslims to cast ballots instead of isolating themselves, “so that all the children of France, regardless of their skin color, their origins or their religion, are fully involved in the future of their country.”   »»» roanoke.com (USA)

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There is a website that has a collection of hundreds of cases where Muslims have condemned wrongdoings done falsely in the name of Islam. The site’s objective is to counter the untrue claim that Muslims do not criticize Muslim misdoings and thus support them.    »»» Muslims Condemn

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QUEBEC, Canada – French-Canadian university student Alexandre Bissonnette was charged on Monday with six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting at a Quebec City mosque.

In a white prisoner suit, with his hands and feet in chains, Bissonnette did not enter a plea during a brief court appearance late on Monday.

The 27-year-old, charged with killing six men during evening prayers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Center, had expressed his support for France’s right-wing politician Marine Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump on his Facebook page.

“It’s with pain and anger that we learn the identity of terrorist Alexandre Bissonnette, unfortunately known to many activists in Quebec for taking nationalist, pro-Le Pen and anti-feminist positions at Laval University and on social media,” Francois Deschamps an official of the group, Bienvenues aux Refugiés, or Welcome to Refugees, wrote on his Facebook page.

Besides the six dead, 19 more were wounded.

Of the five victims who were still in hospital, two were in critical condition, authorities said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard both condemned the terrorist attack in the strongest terms.

In an emotional message, speaking directly to the more than one million Muslims who live in Canada, the Canadian PM said, “We are with you.”

“Make no mistake, this was a terrorist attack. This was a group of innocents targeted for practicing their faith,” he said.

“To the more than 1 million Canadians who profess the Muslim faith, I want to say directly, we are with you; 36 million hearts are breaking with yours.”

He urged Canadians to stand in solidarity with those affected by the attack. “We will grieve with you, we will defend you, we will love you and we will stand with you.”

Trudeau along with the Quebec premier and an estimated 12,000 of others braved the winter cold to attend a candlelight vigil near the mosque to lay flowers and candles in the snow.Thousands of similar vigils were held across Canada on Monday, where people stood in solidarity with Muslims.

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Four of the largest mosques in the Netherlands yesterday announced that they would lock their doors during prayer times after six people were killed in an attack on a mosque in the Canadian province of Quebec.

In a statement, the four mosques said, “We feel that we have to lock the doors of the mosque when prayers are taking place”. Many surveillance cameras have also been set up in the Al-Azraq mosque which is located in the south-western outskirts of the Dutch capital.

Thousands of worshippers take part in the prayers that are held in the four mosques daily. Saeed Bouhro told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the “barbaric acts such as the Quebec attack contribute to increasing the global hatred of Muslims”. He continued by saying that “the mosque is an open building that should be available at all times throughout the day for anyone looking for peace and tranquillity…But we must be cautious of such terrorist attacks. It is unfortunate that we are forced to take these strict safety procedures”.    »»» ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English ed.

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